The Matrix.org network has great potential, but after years of dealing with glitches, slow performance, poor UX, and one too many failures, I’m done with it.
The thing is… What alternatives are there? Signal can’t be trusted (on the very same website there is an article about it). I’m not using closed source alternatives like session, Simplex is kinda shady too tbh and I’m not even sure I could get anyone to use it.
I don’t like Matrix/Element either but sadly its the best open source chat solution we have.
Signal itself is solid. For now.
The issue is that signal is a centralized infrastructure service that is based in the US.
While it’s rather unlikely that something shady is going on and the current administration manages to pressure someone into installing back doors without anyone noticing, there is a growing chance that at some point the Orange Hitler or his cronies aim at Signal - and simply shut the whole thing down in a single sweep.
Which would mean the whole thing is lost - in theory they of course could rebuild a foundation outside the US, but that would also mean they need people not residing in the US (not like Proton which claims to operate from Switzerland and in reality are US based) and find funding there - enough funding to cover the costs and that is not impeded by US pressure.
This is the scenario that makes Signal a problematic candidate - and sadly the foundation is doing nothing against it.
I started reading the article but didn’t finish. This guy is a fool. He’s bitching about vendor lock in? The data isn’t supposed to be portable. That’s the point.
XMPP is significantly less decentralized, allowing them to “”“cut corners”“” compared to Matrix protocol implementation, and scale significantly better. (In heavy quotes, as XMPP isn’t really cutting corners, but true decentralization requires more work to achieve seemingly “the same result”)
An XMPP or IRC channel with a few thousand users is no problem, wheras Matrix can have problems with that. On the other hand, any one Matrix homeserver going down does not impact users that aren’t specifically on that homeserver, whereas XMPP is centralized enough that it can take down a whole channel.
Meanwhile IRC is a 90s protocol that doesn’t make any sense in the modern world of mainly mobile devices.
XMPP also doesn’t change much, the last proper addition to the protocol (from what I can tell, on the website) was 2024-08-30 https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0004.html
The thing is… What alternatives are there? Signal can’t be trusted (on the very same website there is an article about it). I’m not using closed source alternatives like session, Simplex is kinda shady too tbh and I’m not even sure I could get anyone to use it.
I don’t like Matrix/Element either but sadly its the best open source chat solution we have.
Counterpoint: this is just some random blogger and you don’t need to follow any of their advice.
Going back to TS3 and IRC. They never left
Why don’t people trust Signal?
Signal itself is solid. For now. The issue is that signal is a centralized infrastructure service that is based in the US.
While it’s rather unlikely that something shady is going on and the current administration manages to pressure someone into installing back doors without anyone noticing, there is a growing chance that at some point the Orange Hitler or his cronies aim at Signal - and simply shut the whole thing down in a single sweep.
Which would mean the whole thing is lost - in theory they of course could rebuild a foundation outside the US, but that would also mean they need people not residing in the US (not like Proton which claims to operate from Switzerland and in reality are US based) and find funding there - enough funding to cover the costs and that is not impeded by US pressure.
This is the scenario that makes Signal a problematic candidate - and sadly the foundation is doing nothing against it.
Its a 18 months old but OP means this on the same site. https://マリウス.com/if-you-must-use-signal-use-molly/
The blogger also stopped using proton mail. So idk. Seems to be their thing atm.
I started reading the article but didn’t finish. This guy is a fool. He’s bitching about vendor lock in? The data isn’t supposed to be portable. That’s the point.
I forgot to add nextcloud talk!
xmpp mentioned, I’ll add IRC
The article author went back to XMPP, which does appear to be the best option currently.
In what universe is XMPP better than Matrix?
XMPP is significantly less decentralized, allowing them to “”“cut corners”“” compared to Matrix protocol implementation, and scale significantly better. (In heavy quotes, as XMPP isn’t really cutting corners, but true decentralization requires more work to achieve seemingly “the same result”)
An XMPP or IRC channel with a few thousand users is no problem, wheras Matrix can have problems with that. On the other hand, any one Matrix homeserver going down does not impact users that aren’t specifically on that homeserver, whereas XMPP is centralized enough that it can take down a whole channel.
Meanwhile IRC is a 90s protocol that doesn’t make any sense in the modern world of mainly mobile devices.
XMPP also doesn’t change much, the last proper addition to the protocol (from what I can tell, on the website) was 2024-08-30 https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0004.html